In an era when cold-blooded killers like Jesse James terrorized the American West, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and their Wild Bunch gang took a smart and methodical approach to bank and train robbery. In the 1890s, their thrilling exploits — robbing banks and trains and then seemingly vanishing into thin air — became front-page news and the basis of rumor and myth, captivating Americans from coast to coast, and ultimately inspired the hit 1969 film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.